of the names “the All-Knowing, the All-Powerful, the Lord, the God, the Existing One, the Essence,” and the like, is taken according to its apparent sense in a manner that befits the majesty of Allah. Now, when these attributes are predicated of a created being, their plain meaning refers either to a contingent substance or to an accident inhering in that substance. Thus knowledge, power, speech, will, mercy, pleasure, anger, and the like are, for a human servant, accidents, whereas face, hand, and eye are bodily parts—substances.

Accordingly, if Allah is universally described by the affirmers of the attributes as possessing knowledge, power, speech, and will—yet those are not accidents subject to the limitations that apply to the attributes of creatures—then it is equally permissible to maintain that Allah’s Face and His two Hands are not bodies that could be subject to the contingencies befalling the attributes of created beings.